UESP Forums

I've always pondered this, would you like to/or have the option to have, a 1:1 time scale from in game to real like. As in, I sec in real life, equals one second in the game?

I myself would love it. Being able to travel in a much more realistic time frame, trekking through mountains, settling in a cave when it gets dark. Of course this would take an entire day, but nevertheless, it would be an incredibly immersive experience. it would totally make roleplaying that more fun.

How about you?

I'd love a 1:1 time scale,
In fact it's probably the one thing I've always talked about in context with things that a game 'should' have

Well, I normally play with a 1:5 time scale on oblivion. Going at exactly real time would make the game pass by too slow. Just like real life... At least it's better than 30x, where you can spend days clearing out a dungeon. With no sleep. So yes, I want an option like that. Or, even better, being able to choose exactly what timescale you want. Within reasonable limits of course, no x1500 speed.

Master Z wrote:Well, I normally play with a 1:5 time scale on oblivion. Going at exactly real time would make the game pass by too slow. Just like real life... At least it's better than 30x, where you can spend days clearing out a dungeon. With no sleep. So yes, I want an option like that. Or, even better, being able to choose exactly what timescale you want. Within reasonable limits of course, no x1500 speed.

Custom actualy sounds pretty good. I don't know why I didn't think of it. And for that, I added an extra option to the poll.

First of all, I can't vote. It says somethings about the submitted form being invalid.

Secondly, as long as it's optional, I guess it can't hurt. I probably wouldn't use it too much, but it'd be interesting to try it.
But I'd prefer if it's customizable.

Fast time is fine considering each game world is tiny (16 square km or so) and only around 800 people live in the land. It goes with the 'downscaled' feel of playing a TES game. What i mean is if your character can literally run from one end of the land to another in less than an hour (real time), the whole idea of trekking across Skyrim and having to break camp in the wilderness doesn't come into it. Why have villages and Inns in dangerous areas of the land if anyone can live anywhere and commute to wherever they want to go? (the idea of thrillseeking farmers doesn't do it for me)

So i think the quick timescale works fine. When you think about it if time was 1:1 then we will have maybe done the main quest after two or three days playing (50 hours?), which would be a lot less immersive than the quickly passing days. A lot of my favourite characters are around 150 - 200 hours (game time) old , and that means they have reached maybe 40th level after a week or two shenanigans - what on earth were they doing for the first sixteen to twenty years of their lives?
1:1 time for me would just mean i use the wait function a lot (esp if the quest npc is going to meet me in 3 hours) and fast travel would show the passing of a few minutes cos it would only take you that long in game time to get from A to B

I spose a speedy/slow time option would be interesting and useful if you are a werewolf who likes playing 1:1 time in the full moon (or delaying full moons as much as possible), or a vampire character who wants to subject Skyrim to 12 hours of night to do some extended mischief

You know, Mattbott, you got a point there. For the 1:1 time scale to make sense, you would need to make the game world a lot bigger. Because walking across a whole country in under a day just wouldn't make sense.
Still, I wouldn't mind if they added it as an option.

Mattbot is completely right.
I love the 1:5 time scale for the same reason, also - I dont want the time events(if there are) to happen too slow and too far from each other.

I think that the world would be too small to hold it good.

Think, my journey to defeat Alduin took less than a day?! Naah, not for me.

I don't mind it being optional though.

I don't mind the idea of an adjustable time scale, but I do kinda think that playing it in 1:1 real time would be a bit much. I just don't like the idea of having to schedule my day around a game -- frankly, I think that's pretty silly. If I'm staying up late playing, I don't want to have to wait till tomorrow to have to buy stuff; I do that in real life already.

Well I can't vote either, but I've gone with the custom choice.

I wouldn't play 1:1 time at all, as well as agreeing with all the others that say it'll be unrealistic to do so much in a day (complete main quests, travel the entire country) casual players like me, who play for a few hours every so often, would be stuck in that same day for a long time.

Good idea though, it would let you play the game at you're own pace.

Can't vote but would've voted for "make it optional".

I personally would love a 1:1 time scale. Night doesn't feel like night/Day doesn't feel like day in Oblivion. It goes too quickly for my liking. An adjustable time scale would be good,allowing you only to slow down the passing of time but not speed it up. Doubt they'll implement a feature like that in the release version of the game.

The only problem I see with a 1:1 timescale is that distances need to be 1:1 as well or traveling from one city to another is only like 15 min of running and if that is the case why would they build cities so close together. That is why is is my dream to make a game with both one to one time and distance.

No. I think that would ruin the quests, because it would be extremely easy to complete time limit quests. Also this would ruin the roleplaying experience, because ever location would be like an hour and a half away in game time.

A lot of people here are legitimately calling a 1:1 time scale a bad idea because it wouldn't match the distance scale (and perhaps highlight how small the world really is). However, I feel like in some parts of the game the distance scale actually is 1:1. Sure, there's no way the distance between landmarks is supposed to be as short as it is, but once you actually reach those landmarks (cities, caves, mines, ruins etc.) the distances - to me at least - feel somewhat realistic. Perhaps what we need is a changing time scale. Time passes slower in the cities/caves, but faster in the wilderness. I think I like the idea of a slower time scale (like 1:1), but I feel like a changing one has potential also.

A 6:1 timescale is the best, in my opinion. For every hours played, a fourth of a day passes. More realistic! It's not hard to say maybe a 15 minute walk in or time is an hour and a half walk in game.

I'll take 6:1 please. Though adjustable would work great too.

Moeboid wrote:However, I feel like in some parts of the game the distance scale actually is 1:1. Sure, there's no way the distance between landmarks is supposed to be as short as it is, but once you actually reach those landmarks (cities, caves, mines, ruins etc.) the distances - to me at least - feel somewhat realistic. Perhaps what we need is a changing time scale. Time passes slower in the cities/caves, but faster in the wilderness. I think I like the idea of a slower time scale (like 1:1), but I feel like a changing one has potential also.

yes, i think you have something there, especially for certain points in a plot, you might get time almost stopping whilst you wait for a siege to be broken, or in a village harrassed by vampires day passes too quickly and nights are veery long. It could be very subtle, too

adjustable time is definitely something bethesda could use esp since we all know time is subjective and that can have great applications in an immersive single player game.

ThorsHand11 wrote:The only problem I see with a 1:1 timescale is that distances need to be 1:1 as well or traveling from one city to another is only like 15 min of running and if that is the case why would they build cities so close together. That is why is is my dream to make a game with both one to one time and distance.

That is a very good point. A 1:1 timescale would mean that you could beat the main quest and save the world in less than an in-game day.

Speaking of a dynamic time scale, taking only the player's location into account doesn't do much in terms of realism if the player's actions are ignored. I don't want a fight with a bear to last half an hour, for example (1 minute with Oblivion's time scale). In fact, the only situation where I think there's a reason for time to pass quickly would be when you're just travelling from place to place.

One thing that I really like about a 1:1 time scale - as opposed to Oblivion's much faster 1:30 time scale - is that when you arrange to meet with an NPC, they don't have to turn up unrealistally early (in terms of game time), and persist in waiting for hours in order to give the player a reasonable window of (real) time in which to arrive. For some reason these exceptionally large windows always bothered me. Of course, smaller windows necessitates some method of passing time quickly - and I can't be the only one who despised the wait function - so how about an option where the player is allowed to observe the world in fast forward mode. This would also make things like detailed surveillence possible - something that would have been incredibly annoying with Oblivion's time system. Any thoughts on that idea?

Moeboid wrote:
Of course, smaller windows necessitates some method of passing time quickly - and I can't be the only one who despised the wait function - so how about an option where the player is allowed to observe the world in fast forward mode. This would also make things like detailed surveillence possible - something that would have been incredibly annoying with Oblivion's time system. Any thoughts on that idea?

yes, definitely, that would be very cool, it could be a sort of monk/assassin meditation, where you still take in everything of your surrounds but prepare for the encounter. Would be kind of cool watching all the townsfolk speed up, shadows lengthen and the clouds pass overhead (far cry 2 does the speed up time thing brilliantly when you save and wait in a safehouse)

it would also be quite cool to see other npcs doing the same thing, just waiting in a corner quietly (like Strider in the prancing pony) - in fact you might stick around and watch them waiting to see what they are waiting for, could be a hook into a subplot


another thing is tho, tamreil is an alien planet orbiting an unknown star, who's to say a day doesn't really last 1 hour or whatever it is?

Mattbott wrote: another thing is tho, tamreil is an alien planet orbiting an unknown star, who's to say a day doesn't really last 1 hour or whatever it is?

Because if a planet spun that fast, the centrifugal forces would cause everything to fly off of it.

its not even orbiting a star, the "sun" is just rip into Aetherius.

Master Z wrote:

Mattbott wrote: another thing is tho, tamreil is an alien planet orbiting an unknown star, who's to say a day doesn't really last 1 hour or whatever it is?

Because if a planet spun that fast, the centrifugal forces would cause everything to fly off of it.

ahh yes, in our reality, but maybe magic keeps things stuck together in Tamreils part of the multiverse

or maybe the sky spins round tamreil at a great whack (perhaps the application of astronomy isn't appropriate to Tamreil after all lol)